500 Startups has unveiled its 14th batch of companies going through its accelerator.
While Y Combinator is starting to roll out its own class in an upcoming Demo Day, a new one from 500 Startups is emerging — and increasingly, so is the race to be the earliest to invest in companies. Of course, that means that accelerators like 500 Startups — which has a portfolio of more than… Read More

It’s time for CrunchWeek again!
What a week it was.
The Twitter soap opera continues with earnings, no new CEO, hashtags and more. Uber keeps raising money until we lose count. Ouya gets put out of its misery bought.
As Alex would say: It’s Friday, it’s CrunchWeek, it’s time to throw down and talk some smack. Read More

The FDA is currently considering clinical trials for a drug that would delay aging. The idea of extending human longevity is a controversial one, with some arguing for immortality and others arguing that a lifespan into the mid-70s is perfectly adequate. So is the drug good or bad? As an investor in science and technology, this is a non-trivial question for me. Read More

Yahoo just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire style-focused community Polyvore.
In a blog post about the deal, Yahoo’s senior vice president of publisher products Simon Khalaf highlighted “Polyvore’s expertise on community-driven experiences and retailer-supported commerce” and wrote that the deal “will accelerate Yahoo’s digital… Read More

We’ve been promised a flying car for as long as I can remember. From The Jetsons to Back To The Future, we’ve been sold this dream for years and years. Owning something that starts out on the ground and ends up flying through the air is something I want to experience before I kick the bucket. Read More

Well, that was embarrassing. Following months of piss-poor communication and a chaotic planning process, Boston’s bid to be the U.S. entry for the 2024 Olympics finally died this week like Britain’s rule over the colonies. The city that once brought the Industrial Revolution to the people now finds itself unable to build a venue for beach volleyball, or you know, housing or… Read More

Given the massive influx of capital that we are currently enduring in Silicon Valley, TechCrunch has decided to take another crack at the lexicon of the moment to help everyone understand just what people mean when they say things that make you want to snag them by the hair and give them a noogie.
Following our previous entry, this list is an expansion — we are here to help, after all. Read More

August is nearly upon us, which means news is slowing.
But that hasn’t stopped car companies from racing away with the news, including Tesla’s introduction of Ludicrous Mode (which we haven’t stopped talking about), and the old Top Gear crew signing with Amazon for a new show. Meanwhile, Microsoft launched Windows 10, and Razer bought OUYA out in an all-cash deal.
This… Read More

Launching out of the Summer 2015 Y Combinator batch, Locent is an e-commerce platform powered entirely by text messages. One of the biggest challenges for online retailers is shepherding customers through a lengthy checkout process. By providing businesses with a custom, text-enabled phone number, Locent turns the checkout process into just a text message. Read More

Asana, the team productivity software that’s raised $38.2 million from high-profile investors like Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, just got called out on Twitter for its lack of diversity. Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz (pictured above) was quick to respond and he handled it well. In fact, he says Asana is actively working to create a more diverse workforce.
Here’s the tweet… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Partner programs can be a big source of revenue — for example, channel sales account for 80 percent of Cisco’s revenue. Now a startup called GrowSumo is working to make those programs easier to manage, particularly for businesses that don’t have Cisco’s resources.
GrowSumo is part of the current batch of startups at incubator Y Combinator. Co-founder Bryn Jones told me… Read More

Uber just closed a new round of funding that will value the company at more than $50 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper says that Uber has raised close to $1 billion in the round, which brings total equity financing to more than $5 billion.
The WSJ reported that investors in this latest round include Microsoft and Indian media company Bennett, Coleman, and… Read More

As part of Y Combinator’s push into computational biology and bioinformatics, the early-stage firm is backing a team that used to work on the Human Genome Project and is now experimenting with RNA testing through a startup called Cofactor Genomics.
They argue RNA, which is the intermediate step between a person’s DNA and the proteins their bodies make, is a much more accurate… Read More

Kim Dotcom revealed in an interview on Slashdot that he is no longer involved with Mega — he isn’t working for the company anymore, but he also doesn’t own any shares of Mega. Dotcom also said that you shouldn’t trust Mega to host sensitive files anymore, and that he is planning to build yet another file storage service in the coming months. Read More

If you’re a heavy Twitter user, you probably don’t see the homepage much…no, not your timeline, the Twitter.com that shows up when you’re logged out. If other people didn’t talk about it, I probably wouldn’t notice a change. But there have been many over the years.
Its current iteration, making its worldwide debut this week, reminds me of… Read More

Dropbox has launched on the Roku, with an app that allows you to view the photos and videos you have stored in your account directly on your TV by way of Roku’s streaming media player. The new app itself is simple to use – you can browse through your folders, view thumbnails and slideshows, and even search for items by name. Read More

Meet MyTape, a brand new social app for iOS centered around video. On MyTape, you follow people, shoot videos and watch stuff around you. It’s a sort of mash-up between Periscope and Frontback, and it will be interesting to see whether this new social app can find its audience. Read More

This week’s tech headlines saw the launch of Windows 10, Amazon’s new Product Hunt competitor, and Truecaller’s entrance into the unicorn club. These are the stories to catch you up on everything that’s happened this week in tech. Read More

Should Apple be concerned that a number of popular app makers like Facebook, Google and Snapchat have yet to embrace its Apple Watch platform with apps of their own? That’s a question raised by a recent New York Times piece detailing how many developers are taking a “wait-and-see” approach when it comes to Apple’s new wearable. Read More